1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to strand guide rollers of a strand guide device for guiding a cast strand e.g., a slab after it leaves a strand casting mold.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Publications WO 2004/094087 and WO 2005/016578 describe the state of the art with respect to strand guide devices with strand guide rollers. In all of the strand guide rollers, which are disclosed in these publications, all of the separate components, such as roller bodies or rotation-preventing elements in form, e.g., of plain keys, should be stringed on a common central shaft; therefore, the assembly and an eventual disassembly of such strand guide roller are very expensive and require use of special tools. In addition, it is very difficult to realize an inner cooling of the rollers.
State-of-the art with regard to strand guide rollers which are divided once or multiple times, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,279,535. Such strand guide roller includes several sectional rollers arranged axially next to each other, with each sectional roller having two roller journals at its both ends, respectively. The two roller journals, of two arranged next to each other sectional rollers, which extend in opposite directions, are received in their respective axial bearings that typically are combined in a split middle bearing.
Optionally, though this is not shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,279,535, such a middle bearing can have, between the oppositely extending roller journals, additionally, a curved-tooth gear coupling for transmission of a torque between both adjacent sectional rollers.
Such split middle bearings in form of two separate, arranged next to each other, bearings with an optional curved-tooth gear coupling therebetween, are disadvantageously rather wide and, therefore, form a particular wide bearing window in which a to-be-guided and to-be-supported strand is not supported by the sectional rollers. Moreover, such middle bearings, because they are formed of a plurality of separate parts, are rather expensive.
Proceeding from this state-of-the art, the object of the invention is to provide a strand guide roller that can be at least simply split and provide an improved strand guidance.